Special Event – Page 16 – Spectacle Theater

MISS MUERTE (AKA THE DIABOLICAL DR. Z)

Posted on September 30, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

MISS MUERTE (AKA THE DIABOLICAL DR. Z)
Dir. Jesus (Jess) Franco, 1966
84 min. France/Spain.
In French with English subtitles.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 8PM

{*NOTE*: This screening was originally scheduled to have been presented by author/Illustrator/scholar Tenebrous Kate—of the web comic Super Coven and the film review site Love Train For The Tenebrous Empire—but her flight yesterday was unfortunately cancelled. She will be with us again soon!}

Taking cues from Feuillade and Franju, 1966’s MISS MUERTE—known to American audiences as THE DIABOLICAL DR. Z—is Jess Franco’s take on his often-examined “mad scientist rejected by the medical community is avenged by a love one, mostly through sexy cabaret numbers” theme, and one of his most succinct and accessible introductions to his work. Dr. Zimmer creates a mind control machine which his fellow scientists reject as mad, causing him to die of a heart attack. His death is avenged by his daughter Irma Zimmer (Mabel Karr), who uses the device to brainwash go-go dancer Nadia (Estella Blain) and use her to seduce and murder everyone she considers responsible for her father’s death. With dialogue by Oscar-winner (and Bunuel collaborator) Jean-Claude Carriere, MISS MUERTE is certainly a film for fans of such films as Les Yeux Sans Visage, but there’s plenty of characteristic Franco touches, from death by poisoned fingernails to Miss Death’s spider costume. With Franco regular Howard Vernon as one of the dismissive scientists and Franco himself as Inspector Tanner (it’s not really a Franco movie if he doesn’t at least have a cameo) and shot in beautiful black and white, this film is one Franco fans definitely won’t want to miss, but anyone looking for Halloween creeps should definitely find what they’re looking for here.

WHEN MICHAEL CALLS on 16mm!

Posted on September 29, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

WHEN MICHAEL CALLS
Dir. Philip Leacock, 1972
USA. 73 mins. 16mm.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12 – 5 PM
ONE NIGHT ONLY!

There was a time in the universe, specifically 1972, when a TV movie starred Ben Gazzara and Michael Douglas. Together!

An ABC Movie of the Week, the plot concerned a woman Helen (Elizabeth Ashley) who begins to receive creepy phonecalls from her died-too-young nephew. “Auntie-my-Helen, why didn’t you pick me up? Am I DEAD?!” Her ex-husband Doremus (Gazzara), still hanging around because of joint custody of their daughter, and Craig (Douglas), brother of Michael, step up to try to figure out who can be making the calls. It goes beyond being a cruel prank when some of the locals wind up dead, by bee attack or other gruesome ways, and other secrets are unearthed about the death of Helen’s sister and Michael’s disappearance. The dread of the unknown caller and potential inherited insanity have most definitely been plot points in Law & Order or some other TV craptrap, but this movie has a frankness about it that is hard to come by in popular media these days. It is also genuinely creepy, and a bunch of fun. Come watch it with us on 16mm film!

STRONGMAN w/ Director Zachary Levy!

Posted on September 29, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

STRONGMAN
Dir. Zachary Levy, 2011.
USA. 113 min.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 8 – 8:00 PM
One night only! Director Zachary Levy in attendance!

Strongman tells the story of Stanley “Stanless Steel” Pleskun, “The Strongest Man in the World at Bending Steel and Metal”. A man who can lift dump trucks and bend US pennies with his fingers, but struggles daily to transcend his chaotic New Jersey home life. Aging parents, an alcoholic brother, a timid beauty of a girlfriend, show-biz agents and strength rivals; pressure mounts on Stan as he feels time slipping away. However, what starts as a portrait of an eccentric outsider soon becomes a deeply universal story about trying to find a better life in the scraps of modern times.

This screening is in conjunction with the October 15th release of Strongman on DVD, available here.

“an outsider tale of lilting poignancy” New York Times

“I watched with quiet fascination” – Roger Ebert

“A strange and strangely beautiful movie” John Anderson, Variety

HABIT with Larry Fessenden in attendance!

Posted on September 29, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

HABIT
Dir. Larry Fessenden, 1995.
USA. 113 min.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11 – 8:00 PM

One night only! Director/star Larry Fessenden in attendance!

Spectacle is pleased to welcome acclaimed horror filmmaker Larry Fessenden for a special screening of HABIT, his breakout 1995 independent vampire film.

Breaking up has never quite sucked like this: shortly after splitting with his girlfriend, Sam (Fessenden) heads to a party, where a mysterious woman, Anna, catches his attention. After losing each other, the pair reconnects, and Sam quickly finds himself bewitched. While Sam continues to cope with the recent death of his father, breakup of his relationship, and struggles with drinking, he increasingly finds himself lost in his relationship with the seemingly omnipresent Anna, even as their relationship moves beyond the usual kink.

Haunting, funny, and insightful, HABIT brilliantly mixes metaphors for relationships, vampirism, co-dependency, and addiction, all wrapped in a vital independent filmmaking ethos. Seen today, it not only represents the best of a certain kind of New York filmmaking, but is one of the great unheralded portraits of the city. Recognizably shot on location in and around the East Village, Lower East Side, Soho, NoLIta, and Battery Park, it’s location provides a crucial layer within rich contemporary urban horror story. HABIT is a must-see.

WORLDS WITHOUT NUMBER: THE FILMS OF STEPHEN GROO

Posted on September 28, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

WORLDS WITHOUT NUMBER: THE FILMS OF STEPHEN GROO
A Shoot the Lobster event
Organized by Jason Metcalf (will be in attendance!)

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9 – 7:30 PM & 10:00 PM

Spectacle Theater and Shoot the Lobster are pleased to present a selection of music videos, shorts, and a feature film by the Utah based filmmaker STEPHEN GROO. Many of the selected works will be screened publicly for the first time.

Creating his work as Utah Wolf Productions for over fourteen years in the city of Provo Utah, Stephen Groo has been described by the filmmaker and artist Chris Coy as “an enigma—a highly prolific filmmaker with a body of work that speaks to his force of will and creative vision while exposing the limitations of the backyard blockbuster. His 125+ short films, music videos, feature films, and training videos have it all: mermaids, vampires, elves, angels, sailors, schoolgirls, devils, damsels, zombies, soldiers, she-hulks, and real-life action heroes. These figures populate worlds without number, a pastiche of popular culture collaged from Michael Bay movie posters and Saturday morning cartoons.

As a viewer, it’s natural to laugh at the limitations of a film by Stephen Groo. We laugh as we recognize the obvious imperfections in his homespun narrative fabrics. We laugh at the production gap between Hollywood and Utah County. We laugh because Fantasy is uglier than casting agents have led us to believe. We laugh (nervously) at the possibility of our own inclusion as actors in a Utah Wolf Production. We laugh, immensely pleased with our advantaged position as passive spectators. Like the royals in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we laugh as Bottom’s amateurish theatre troupe faithfully performs “a most lamentable comedy.” But if we succumb to laughter only, we miss what’s crucial: the implicit belief that art can save the world. That imagination is real.

Art is, in fact, saving the world for Stephen Groo. It’s saving the world for his players, too. It’s saving all of our worlds—circumscribing them inside a shared universe that desperately needs Fantasy to fight back the Dark Lords of Reality. Like Bottom, Groo freely cavorts with the humans and the fairies, modeling the transformative potential of art and the euphoric freedom of abandonment to the wildness of make-believe.

From “Groo and His Players” Chris Coy, Utah Biennial Catalogue, 2013. Utah Biennial: Mondo Utah curated by Aaron Moulton at Utah Museum of Contemporary Art

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9 – 7:30 PM

SELECTIONS FROM MUSIC VIDEOS, VOLUME ONE
Dir. Stephen Groo, 2010
USA. 15 min.

From clones to European Men in Black, this selection from Utah Wolf Productions’ Music Videos Volume 1 features some of the earliest works of Stephen Groo. The special effects and 3D animations are out of this world. Sit back and enjoy the ride!

RUBI
Dir. Stephen Groo, 2012
USA. 75 min.

The most recent Stephen Groo film, Rubi is the story of a young woman who has everything taken from her that she holds dear by the evil criminal Richard Lions (Dallin Haws). After mourning the loss of her family, and under the guidance of the skilled mercenary Henry (Stephen Groo), Rubi (Hailey Nebeker) trains to destroy her nemesis, ultimately preparing for the battle of her life. Utah Wolf Productions has announced that Rubi will their “last full length feature”.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9 – 10:00 PM

MUSIC VIDEOS, VOLUME 2
Dir. Stephen Groo, 2010
USA. 28 min.

Music Videos, Volume 2 features some of the best music videos of Stephen Groo. In Tribute to Utah, (publicly broadcasted on a local Utah television news station) Groo travels with his wife and children to a significant number of towns in the Beehive State in order to stand in front of welcome signs that bear the name of each municipality, all in sync with his lyrical adaptation to the Beach Boys’ Kokomo. Other music videos from Volume 2 feature Groo and company dancing and singing to popular songs as sailors, boy bands, fairies, and frogs.

LION BEAR WHALE?
Dir. Stephen Groo, 2008
USA. 4 min.

Lion Bear Whale? was Utah Wolf Productions’ first commercial project, commissioned by the Provo Utah based band, Mathematics Etcetera. The video literally interprets Mathematics’ song by casting the band members as a lion, a bear, and a whale as they sing lyrics that coincide with their costumes. Lion Bear Whale? is one of Utah Wolf Productions’ only works that does not feature Stephen Groo.

TALE OF MERMAIDS
Dir. Stephen Groo, 2006
USA. 4 min.

In Tale of Mermaids, a New York City reporter Will (Aaron Parker) is sent to Ireland to catch the story a lifetime. While investigating the legend of mermaids, fantasy and reality meet as he falls in love with a mysterious woman who isn’t what she seems. Will must decide what matters most, his heart or his career.

SHIKITO
Dir. Stephen Groo, 2007
USA. 10 min.

Anime realms come to life in this classic Stephen Groo film pitch trailer. While mourning and forgiving himself for the loss of his wife, Shikito must face his evil rival Drachen with the aid of his friends Connor and Tenki. Filmed in the snowy alpine mountains of Utah, Shikito is filled with action-packed samurai sword fighting, suspenseful confrontations and powerful energy balls.

BEGIN AGAIN: THE FILMS OF MARNIE WEBER

Posted on September 26, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

BEGIN AGAIN: THE FILMS OF MARNIE WEBER
Dir. Marnie Weber, 1993-2010
USA, 134 min.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 7:30 PM (Pt. 1) & 9:00 PM (Pt. 2)

Director Marnie Weber in attendance for Parts 1 & 2 for an introduction and Q&A!

Los Angeles based artist Marnie Weber has been constructing an elaborate narrative through music, collage, sculpture and film since the late 1970’s. Weber cut her teeth as a musician in no wave bands such as The Party Boys and The Perfect Me before continuing solo as a performer and visual artist. From her start in music, she continued adding layers to her performance and visual art through costume and theatrics as well as narrative and character vignette.

With the addition of film to her oeuvre in the 1990’s Weber folded an entirely new dimension into her artistic universe—a universe in which the inanimate and the hominal intermix freely. In film, the tropes of personified animals, ghosts, and special powers, which have always frequented her work, mingle eerily with masks that transform live actors into puppets and sculptures into cast characters. The result is an animated and newly uncanny view through the windows of her haunted dollhouse.

Part I: EARLY FILMS AND OTHERS
(approx. 61 min.)

All Night Movies (1993)
Songs Hurt Me (1994)
Destiny and Blow Up Friends (1995)
Death Valley (1996)
I’m Not a Bunny (1996)
Lost in the Woods (1997)
The Red Nurse and the Snowman (2000)
The Forgotten (2001)
The Ghost Trees (2002)
The Night of Forevermore (2012)

Part II: FILMS OF THE SPIRIT GIRLS
(approx. 73 min.)

In the early 2000’s Weber created The Spirit Girls who are on one hand a band and on another their own artwork. They are the ghosts of five adolescent girls who were struck down in their prime and continue through musical performance and ventriloquism to attempt to communicate with the living world.

Songs that Never Die (2005)
A Western Song (2007)
Sea of Silence (2009)
The Campfire Song (2009)
The Eternal Heart at Eternity Forever Performance (2010)

& OTHER WORKS: TOM THAYER

Posted on September 25, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23RD

TWO SCREENINGS – 8 AND 10 PM – ARTIST IN ATTENDANCE

MORE DETAILS TBA!

“& Other Works” is a series of screenings focusing on film and video from contemporary artists organized by C. Spencer Yeh. “& Other Works” is an informal communal viewing experience, away from the white walls and passwords.

Maybe you don’t know the particular shadow that the October moon casts for us here at the Spectacle, but in its quaint darkness we like to call it Spec3ber – the numerical affectation being that it’s the third in our fledgling history. Nothing is ever easily defined or agreed upon with us, except that Halloween is a month-long event. And since & Other Works is even younger, we like to learn by watching and following along with our guardian – stealing make-up, smoking pretzel sticks, and pretending our shoe is an iPhone. So, it’s with great pleasure that this Spec3ber we have the fantastical works of the inimitable Tom Thayer.

Let’s start off by saying that really in order to get the whole picture, you may need to attend one of Thayer’s fully three-dimensional performances or installations. However, in keeping with the &OW ethos, we’ll be focusing on JTV – Just The Video. Nothing will be lacking however, as all the unsettled lanky angles and smeared colors of his paintings, sculptures, music and his etcetera and ephemera are fully in effect and incorporated. In fact, as &OW hopes, being served by the flat faceful will put you even further in the zone.

The program will survey Thayer’s video works from his earliest animation “Phantasmagoria” on through music videos for both his own music as well others (e.g. NYC’s finest No Neck Blues Band), and on to later works regularly incorporated into aboveplugged performances and installations. We’re pretty excited to give them the proper &OW “microcinematic” attention and reception.

Thayer has gone on record more-or-less saying his methods and materials are decidedly kept to a period of time in which he feels comfortable and connected working within. So, that’s masking tape and cardboard, crude cuts and jagged circuits; Thayer coaxes every bit and blurp of curdle and mist out of his tools. Though a particular unplaceable nostalgia may be provoked in sampling his work, Thayer is no more a retro-fetishist than you would be using your great-grandparents’ armoire, because that shit is built to last.

It’s hard to really describe the vibe without getting into some words like “haunting,” “playful” and “surreal” but those words are loaded with blanks these days. Likewise, we can get into talking about collage, stop-motion, marionettes, analog video, oscillators, and drum machines. Then there’s the thin gaunt birds, rainbow omelette mountains, and children with crushed faces only mothers with crushed faces could love. Or we can just say there’s something about how every element just lands beautifully and properly in Thayer’s hand and vision that we had no choice but to use “inimitable” earlier.

AN EVENING WITH BARRY GIFFORD

Posted on September 25, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

AN EVENING WITH BARRY GIFFORD
Including two episodes of the HBO television series HOTEL ROOM, written by Gifford and directed by David Lynch

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17 – 8:00 PM (With Gifford Intro/Q&A)
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17 – 10:00 PM (With Gifford Intro)

Both shows are SOLD OUT. There will be NO standby or standing room for the 8:00 pm show, but there will be VERY LIMITED additional admission at the 10:00 PM show. Show up early, and we will let a few people on standby in around 10:15 pm.

Co-sponsored by Vice Magazine, Book Thug Nation, and Seven Stories Press.

Join renowned author Barry Gifford for a very special evening of literary discussion paired with an exclusive screening of two rarely seen episodes from David Lynch’s HBO series HOTEL ROOM, both written by Gifford. In ‘TRICKS,’ the uneasy meeting of two men and a hooker at the Railroad Hotel has deadly repercussions. In ‘BLACKOUT,’ a power failure is the catalyst for strange revelations between a husband and his ailing wife in a New York hotel. Following the screening Gifford will discuss his career as a poet, author, and screenwriter as well as his long-running collaboration with David Lynch (WILD AT HEART, LOST HIGHWAY).

Following the screening, Gifford will sign copies of his latest book, The Roy Stories. Spanning time and space—the Southern and Midwestern United States from the 1940s through the 1980s—The Roy Stories chronicle the personal history of Gifford from Chicago to Miami in a Hemingway style Nick Adams story. Emotional, exploratory, and brimming with photographic realism, these stories capture a Beat-inspired sense of time and place and a record of the attitudes and the language of the time.

Before the show, from 6:30 to 7:30 pm, Gifford will also appear at Book Thug Nation (100 North 3rd Street between Berry Street and Wythe Avenue) for a reading and reception for The Roy Stories.

Barry Gifford, called “a master of the short story” by the New York Times Book Review, is the author of more than forty published works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, which have been translated into twenty-eight languages. Gifford’s most recent prose works include Sailor & Lula: The Complete Novels, Sad Stories of the Death of Kings, and Memories from a Sinking Ship: A Novel. His first full-length novel, Landscape with Traveler, will be back in print for the first time in fifteen years this October from Seven Stories Press.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

Posted on September 25, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
George A. Romero, 1968.
98 min, USA.

HALLOWEEN, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31 – 7:30 PM
HALLOWEEN, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31 – 10:00 PM

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD is the greatest horror movie ever made, and we are pleased to present our third annual Halloween screening.

When the dead return to life, a group of strangers barricades itself inside a creaky farmhouse while fending of lumbering zombies and trying to make sense of the dense weave of media chatter on television and radio to formulate a plan of action. Rife with brilliantly-conceived social and political tensions, NOTLD is perhaps most terrifying for its layers of ambiguity and confusion, offering little in the way of rationalization. In that respect, it mirrors a frequent and very real yearning for simple answers to irreducible problems, and the urgent, fatalistic sense of impending doom associated with disaster response, triage, denial, and survival. If the response from last year’s packed audience is any indication, it remains a deeply disturbing and horrifying as ever.

NOTLD is ground zero for the modern zombie, and its transformative impact on popular culture ironically places it near the top of many’s lists as a movie often felt to be understood without actually having seen. Whether you’re checking it out for the first time or due for a revisiting, we guarantee NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD will shock you.

HÄXAN

Posted on September 25, 2013December 22, 2019 by spectacletheater

HÄXAN
Benjamin Christensen, 1922.
Sweden/Denmark. Appx. 90 min.
Silent with English-language intertitles.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16 – 8:00 PM

16MM SCREENING!

Featuring live Haunted Victrola accompaniment with music contemporaneous to the film on 78 record by filmmaker Joel Schlemowitz

Spectacle is pleased to welcome filmmaker Joel Schlemowitz for a special 16mm presentation of HÄXAN, a triple-classic of silent, Swedish, and Satanic cinema. Ostensibly a documentary inspired by director Benjamin Christensen’s study of 15-century German inquisition, HÄXAN offers up a stunning atrocity exhibition of beautifully realized tableaux featuring demons, astrology, witchcraft, black sabbaths, Satanic rituals, and torture. In other words, even as a silent film, it’s easily the most metal movie ever made. Banned in the U.S. because the people of 1922 couldn’t hang, it’s since become an iconic work.

In the interest of channelling our Dark Lord and Master, tonight’s screening will be an ALL-ANALOG séance. We’ll be showing a 16mm print along with music contemporaneous to the film from 78-rpm record on Schelmowitz’s Haunted Victrola. Whether you’ve seen HÄXAN or not, tonight is a special experience that you won’t want to miss. See you in Hell!